Search This Blog

Posts

To
Light a Fire on the Earthy: Proclaiming the Gospel in a Secular Age by
Robert L. Barron with John L. Allen Jr. Knowing John L. Allen Jr. from previous reporting on the
Catholic tradition, I am immediately excited about this book engaging Father
Robert L Barron. Somewhat of an internet
sensation on YouTube and through the production of a series of videos on
Catholicism, Father Barron has gotten a wide audience of viewers and readers in
a way unseen since the time of Fulton J. Sheen.
The subtitle of the book was also appealing since it is the gospel that
I believe that is central to the whole edifice of Christianity, both in belief
and in practice. Part of the unique voice coming from Father Barron is
related to his being raise in the post conciliar time where experimentation and
feeling were part and parcel of the Catholic experience. Yet, this kind of deep emotional weight left
a kind of fully orbed understanding of the behind. After hearing much about
social justice, Barron was…

Peter J. Gentry, How
to Read and Understand the Biblical Prophets With our noses in the good book, we often plow through the
Bible’s pages with the same focus, reading Romans like we read Ezekiel. And yet, as Dr. Gentry so helpfully explains,
we miss the point if we read the prophets like an epistle or gospel. There is so much going on that we need to be
aware of and pay attention to. In his
new book, How to Read and Understand the Biblical Prophets, Dr. Peter J.
Gentry, author Kingdom Through Covenant helps us read the prophets well, paying
attention to the various kinds of literary forms and theological message they have
for us. In the opening chapter, Peter alerts to the central theme
of these OT prophets, “Everything in the prophets is based upon the covenant
made between God and Israel during the exodus from Egypt, especially…as it is
found in the book of Deuteronomy.” Covenant keeping and covenant breaking is
part and parcel of the whole prophetic corpus, but this plays of part…

How to Think by
Alan Jacobs
In this frenetic world of information and gadgetry, we often
promote arguments and ideas without properly thinking about what we are saying
and how we are saying it. Alan Jacobs,
Professor at Baylor University’s Honors Program, gives us a pungent dose of sane
wisdom on how to think in almost any given situation, including when we want to
slam our opponents head against the wall with some overblown illogical and
unfair verbal argument and need help.
Drawing from C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, Daniel Kahneman and others,
Alan paints a broad picture of how unthinking brings the whole society down and
how clear thinking aided by emotion can bring back a sense of flourishing among
human beings.
Jacobs posits in the introduction of the book that it is not
so much a matter of rational or irrational thinking that is the problem, but
something altogether different. He
writes, “For me, the fundamental problem we have may best be described as an
orientation of the wil…

Taking a look at the digital copy of this book allowed me to look at the striking art inside the book, and its connection to the words of the page that were focusing on loss. Looking at the physical copy of the book even brings to life more the staggering similarity that the words and pain have together on the page. The focus here is how certain colors express the sentiments of those who have lost a loved one. I did not think that I would relate too well to this book until two days ago, as we lost our little boy, who was only 17 weeks old. The pain is palpable and yet the pages of this book give me good reason to think of my son with a sense of pride and hope.

Roger writes, "You are a shooting star. Your light trails across the heavens. I blinked and you were gone." We were full of anticipation at the first and second ultrasounds, and there was the picture of our little boy Jackson, his developing face and little …

Can
You See Anything Now? A
Novel by Katherine James Upon seeing this book on my doorstep for the first time, I
was very intrigued by the cover, the fact that this was the author’s first
novel, and that Paraclete Press was back publishing fiction, alongside their
beautiful and profound religious literature.
This book, Can You See Anything Now is a novel of intersecting
characters whose lives illuminate the themes of friendship, deep brokenness,
and immense suffering. Though this book
was sure to bring one to both tears and anger, its message was intertwined
between hope and despair, a novel that caused the reader to look deeply into
the road each character walked. One of the main characters of the book, Margie, was the
mother of Noel, and the wife of Nick, the counselor. Margie walks on the precipice of despair,
suffering deeply from depression and meaninglessness. Yet, part of the beauty of the book is the
way Katherine draws Margie out of her loneliness through Etta. Both painte…

About Me

My name is Spencer Cummins. I have a wonderful wife and a sweet daughter. I live in O'Fallon, Missouri and serve at Grace PCA of St. Charles County. My passions are reading, writing, playing with family. My hope is that this blog will ignite a desire to serve Christ and to think biblically and theologically about God and his world.